Gus Poyet

Gustavo Augusto Poyet Domínguez (born 15 November 1967) is a Uruguayan professional football manager and former footballer.

He is currently the head coach of the Greece national team.

Poyet played as a midfielder and began his career with short spells at Grenoble and River Plate.

He then spent seven years at Real Zaragoza, with whom he won the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

Poyet moved to Real Zaragoza in 1990; winning the Copa del Rey in 1994 and the Cup Winners' Cup a year later, beating Arsenal in the final.

He became Zaragoza's longest-serving foreign player, and scored 60 goals in 240 games for the club.

Poyet was a Uruguay international, making his international debut on 13 July 1993 in a friendly match against Peru (1–2).

After 67 minutes, he was substituted by Carlos Aguilera.

He was also part of the Uruguay side which won the 1995 Copa América.

After his playing career ended, Poyet moved into coaching.

He served as assistant manager to Dennis Wise at Swindon Town and Leeds United, and Juande Ramos at Tottenham Hotspur.

Poyet helped his country win the Copa América in 1995.

In doing so, he was voted as the best player in his position at the tournament.

He won 26 caps in total, scoring three goals.

In 1997, Poyet moved to Chelsea on a free transfer and helped the club win the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup.

Poyet joined Chelsea on a free transfer in June 1997.

Not long into his first season at the London club, he suffered cruciate ligament damage, this meant he missed the victorious 1998 Football League Cup Final but recovered to play in the team's successful Cup Winners' Cup Final against VfB Stuttgart.

The following year, he contributed 14 goals – making him the club's second highest scorer – to help Chelsea finish third in the Premiership, including a crucial headed goal in 1–0 win against Leeds United.

He also scored the winner for Chelsea in the 1998 UEFA Super Cup against Real Madrid.

In 1999–2000, he scored 18 goals (which again made him Chelsea's second highest scorer), with a scissors-kick volley against Sunderland, a long range strike against Lazio, and both of Chelsea's goals in the FA Cup semi-final against Newcastle United, among the most memorable, as the team won the FA Cup and reached the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals.

With the arrival of new manager Claudio Ranieri in September 2000, Chelsea was a team in transition.

With Ranieri seeking to reduce the average age of the squad, Poyet became surplus to requirements and requested a transfer.

In 145 appearances for Chelsea, Poyet scored 49 goals.

In 2001, he moved to Tottenham Hotspur, where he saw out the remainder of his career.

Poyet joined Tottenham Hotspur in May 2001 for around £2.2 million.

He scored 14 goals in his debut season for Spurs and helped his team reach the League Cup final, but they lost 2–1 to Blackburn Rovers.

His time at the club was blighted by injuries, and he again sustained cruciate ligament damage in August 2002, but still managed to score 23 goals in 98 games.

In July 2006, he became a player and assistant manager at Swindon Town alongside ex-Chelsea teammate, Dennis Wise.

Both Poyet and Wise were given permission to talk about forming the new Leeds United management team on 23 October 2006 and looked set to take the place of caretaker manager, John Carver, until Swindon withdrew permission due to disagreements over compensation.

On 24 October 2006, Poyet was confirmed as assistant manager of Leeds with Dennis Wise as the manager.

On 29 October 2007, Poyet rejoined his former club Tottenham Hotspur to work alongside new head coach Juande Ramos as a first team coach with Marcos Álvarez as a fitness coach.

During his first season as assistant manager at White Hart Lane, he won the 2007–08 League Cup, beating Chelsea 2–1 after extra time in the Final after a penalty from Dimitar Berbatov in normal time and a header early into extra time from Jonathan Woodgate.

On 25 October 2008, Poyet parted company with Tottenham Hotspur along with manager Juande Ramos, first team coach Marcos Álvarez and sporting director Damien Comolli.

In November 2009, Poyet was appointed manager of Brighton & Hove Albion and in his first full season led the club to promotion as League One Champions, for which he was named League One Manager of the Year by the LMA.

On 10 November 2009, Poyet was announced as the new manager of English League One side Brighton & Hove Albion on a one-and-a-half-year contract.

Former Tottenham teammate Mauricio Taricco was also announced as Poyet's assistant manager.

He steered the club to safety as he had a brilliant start to his career at Brighton by going to Southampton and winning 3–1.

In October 2013 he was hired by Premier League team Sunderland and guided them to the League Cup Final in his first season, but was sacked in March 2015 after a poor run of results.

He later had spells at Superleague Greece side AEK Athens, La Liga club Real Betis, Chinese Super League team Shanghai Shenhua, Bordeaux of Ligue 1, and Universidad Católica in Chile, before being appointed as coach of Greece in 2022.

Born in Montevideo, a goalscoring midfielder, he began his career with spells at Grenoble and River Plate.